Tow Vs. Paddle Surfing Big Waves; Nate and Koa Discuss (Watch)

Long before Laird Hamilton revolutionized big-wave surfing with the Strapped Crew (Buzzy Kerbox and Darrick Doerner included), whipping into previously unthinkably big waves at Jaws, California’s Herbie Fletcher was doing it at Pipeline.

That was the 1980s. Laird and his crew came along in the late nineties and early aughts. So, yeah, tow surfing has been around for quite a while.

However, it’s as contentious amongst core big-wave surfers as ever. To tow or not to tow? Is tow surfing cheating? What wave warrants a tow? Which a paddle?

Well, big-wave surfers Nathan Florence and Koa Rothman – both primarily of the paddle persuasion – shared their thoughts on tow surfing in the latest episode of their podcast. And, they had a lot of thoughts (and opinions) on the questions above.

“I’m not the biggest fan of tow surfing,” admitted Koa.

However, there were a few caveats, as Koa continued:

“I do agree that there is a time and place and a wave for it. But I would say those two [Kai Lenny and Lucas Chumbo] are very entertaining to watch. Even on the biggest wave, if they’re towing in, they’re doing like airs down the face, and they’re doing huge cutbacks or carves.

“Or even massive chop-hops, like, flying out the back 40 feet. Whereas, I’ve never seen other tow guys do that. They look like a video game.”

And Nate jumped in, too:

“I feel the same way. If I’m going to watch that, that’s what I wanna see. That is so crazy [to surf like that] on waves of that size. Sometimes they do full-rotation chop-hops into the drop. That’s progression. The other guys are just going straight and kicking out.

“Some [tow surfers] are just surviving; those guys [Kai and Chumbo] are actually surfing the wave.”

The debate amongst big-wave paddlers and tow surfers rages on.

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